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Tuesday 14 May 2002

AM is Australia's most informative morning current affairs. It covers the stories each morning that the other current affairs teams follow for the rest of the day. Below is the program summary with links to transcripts and audio (if available).

Ruth Cracknell dies

This morning, a sad note. One of the most familiar faces of Australian drama, the elegant, silver haired Ruth Cracknell has died, succumbing to a lung ailment at the age of 76 and leaving a legacy not only of much loved performance but also social activism.

Geoffrey Atherden remembers Ruth Cracknell

One of Ruth Cracknell's most memorable roles was that of Mother and Son. Delightfully dotty and so convincing that colleagues say that her audiences were convinced that Ruth Cracknell actually was Maggie Beare. The man who helped the immensely talented actress create that character was screenwriter Geoffrey Atherden.

Pay for say

The Federal Opposition is accusing the Liberal Party of using the cover of fundraising to sell access to Howard Government Ministers. Media executives have been invited to a lunch with the Communications Minister Richard Alston and the Finance Minister Nick Minchin to discuss specific and sensitive policy issues such as media ownership laws but there's a price tag. A cool $3,500 price tag in fact, the money to be paid into Liberal Party coffers.

Terror legislation rejected

The Federal Attorney-General's terrorism legislation has run into another serious hurdle. Last week members of his own government wrote a Senate Committee report that called for major changes to the planned laws. That backbench resistance has been growing and now any prospect of support from the Labor Party, crucial if the laws are to get through the Senate, has evaporated over a key element of the bills.

US farm bill signed

Variously described as grotesque, incoherent, immoral and a rort, a new US farm bill cementing agricultural subsidies for the next ten years has nonetheless today been signed into being by President George W. Bush.

Sierra Leone election

Sierra Leone later today takes a critical step trying to cement an end to a decade of civil war, one of Africa's most brutal, that filled television screens with ugly images of hacked off limbs and wild-eyed, drugged up rebels. Millions of voters in the West African state go to the polls today in the first democratic election since the end of that conflict.

PNG faces AIDS epidemic

Papua New Guinea is on the brink of a devastating HIV-AIDS crisis of Africa proportions, its extent spelled out in a study for the Federal Government's overseas aid office AusAid and handed to the Papua New Guinea government.

Hunger strike in Bendigo

A seven day long hunger strike by a 55-year-old mother has finally forced the Victorian Police Force to change the way it treats prisoners in regional lockups. Ann Wilkins camped outside the Bendigo Police Station for seven days and nights eating nothing to protest at the confinement of prisoners in holding cells for more than a month, one of those is her son.

UK truancy sends Mum to gaol

A court in Britain has gaoled a single mother for two months for failing to force her two daughters to go to school, a ruling that has shocked welfare groups but one that appears to be in line with the British Government's fight against truancy, which includes a recent threat by Tony Blair to cut welfare payments to the families of persistent truants.